Ahh, dividends.
Even just hearing that word conjures up all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings for me.
I remember playing the board game Monopoly as a kid. My favorite Chance card was the one where Mr. Monopoly (or Rich Uncle Pennybags) collected his bank dividend of $50.
I thought that was so neat. Collecting money for nothing. Growing up as poor as I did, it seemed like a pipe dream as a child.
Well, it’s no pipe dream.
But it is a dream; it’s a dream of a lifestyle that almost anyone can live, as I’ve proven out over the years.
Mr. Monopoly sits on my shelf at home, reminding me every day of just how far I’ve come…
How far?
I went from below broke in early 2010 to financially independent in early 2016.
And I did so with no particular advantage(s) over anyone else. I grew up in a crack house in Detroit. My parents abandoned me. I have no college degree. I worked at a car dealership making ~$50,000 per year – until I didn’t.
Those six years of my life I set aside to aggressively save and intelligently invest my capital resulted in financial freedom at 33 years old – which is how I became Mr. Free At 33.
That financial freedom is underpinned by the five-figure and growing passive dividend income my FIRE Fund generates on my behalf.
I aptly named my portfolio the FIRE Fund because it allows me FI/RE (financial independence/retired early).
The Fund is a portfolio built on the tenets of dividend growth investing, whereby I allocate my capital almost exclusively toward high-quality stocks that have lengthy track records of paying rising dividends year after year.
These are world-class businesses. Because of that, they tend to rake in more profit year in and year out. And because shareholders are ultimately the collective owners of any publicly-traded company, growing dividends are our rightful share of that growing profit.
Well, the growing dividends that are sent my way by the businesses I own a slice of are enough to cover my basic personal expenses in life, meaning I don’t need to ever have a job again. Haven’t had one since turning 32 years old. And I have no plans to ever have one again.
If you’re interested in using dividend growth investing to achieve FIRE for yourself, check out my two best-selling books on this: The Dividend Mantra Way and 5 Steps To Retire In 5 Years (also available in paperback).
What you’ll soon see is the tangible manifestation of all of these concepts I write about.
The table below lists every dividend I received (as well as each respective company that paid it) from the preceding month.
This is real cash money, folks. Every time a dividend comes in, that’s real-life money I can use to do whatever I want with. Now we all know why Mr. Monopoly loved to kick back with a cigar, like a boss.
When you’re collecting a dividend a day, you are a boss!
Without further ado…
| Albemarle Corporation (ALB) | $11.73 |
| The Coca-Cola Co. (KO) | $54.60 |
| Genuine Parts Company (GPC) | $3.60 |
| PPL Corp. (PPL) | $16.40 |
| Kimberly-Clark Corp. (KMB) | $20.00 |
| South Jersey Industries Inc. (SJI) | $14.00 |
| Nike Inc. (NKE) | $1.00 |
| Altria Group Inc. (MO) | $56.00 |
| Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW) | $27.30 |
| Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) | $114.00 |
| Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC) | $6.00 |
| Ventas, Inc. (VTR) | $47.40 |
| Realty Income Corp. (O) | $20.90 |
| Chubb Ltd. (CB) | $10.95 |
| Cardinal Health Inc. (CAH) | $14.29 |
| EPR Properties (EPR0 | $14.40 |
| Main Street Capital Corporation (MAIN) | $22.80 |
| Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB) | $24.70 |
| Stag Industrial Inc. (STAG) | $13.02 |
| STORE Capital Corp. (STOR) | $13.95 |
| W.P. Carey Inc. (WPC) | $76.50 |
| Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) | $18.15 |
| Medtronic PLC (MDT) | $18.50 |
| Walt Disney Co. (DIS) | $33.60 |
| Armanino Foods of Dinstinction Inc. (AMNF) | $30.38 |
| Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) | $50.19 |
| Chatham Lodging Trust (CLDT) | $15.95 |
| Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) | $30.85 |
| Total: | $781.16 |
Just for reference, a great resource for tracking your portfolio and everything related to it is Personal Capital.
The money for nothing, and my life for free!
It fills me with joy to know my money is working this hard for me, so I don’t have to. It’s just such an amazing position to be in. I’m truly the happiest I’ve ever been.
I can go about my life as I please – doing what I like, when I like, where I like, with people I like. That’s a luxury that you can’t really put a price on, and it’s far more luxurious than any physical object I can think of. I’d simply much rather own my time than anything else in this world.
As I’ve said many times over the years, this is something just about anyone can do.
Financial freedom doesn’t require a special ticket, a certain amount of intelligence, a particular skin color, or anything else like that.
You just have to work hard, stay consistent, believe in yourself, and want it more than anything else. You have to know you will get there because you have the will to make it happen.
This month’s dividend income is 17.4% higher than the $665.14 I collected in July 2017. The total amount of dividend income I’ve collected in 2018 is now up to $7,029.31. That’s 13.3% YOY growth compared to the $6,201.60 in dividend income I earned through July 2017.
That’s fantastic YOY dividend growth here, especially considering that organic dividend growth (the dividend increases that come from the companies I’m invested in) did the heavy lifting here – I’m no longer aggressively buying stocks. The portfolio is basically in “maintenance mode” from here on out.
And since moving abroad has more or less eliminated inflation from my life, dividend growth isn’t even the concern it once was for me.
Still, large annual increases in purchasing power goes a long way toward improving my quality of life through the additional flexibility/options that comes along with that.
It was another fantastic month, and I hope all of you also had a fantastic July!
Full disclosure: I’m long all aforementioned stocks.
How was your month? How much dividend income did you collect? Is your dividend income (and the growth of it) living up to expectations?
Thanks for reading.
Image courtesy of: bplanet at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
P.S. If you’d also like to collect five-figure dividend income and reach FIRE, check out some phenomenal resources that personally helped me become financially independent in my early 30s!
Wow, those are spectacular growth numbers indeed. Especially for almost all organic dividend growth. Hat tip to you Sir!
Team CF,
Thanks so much. It’s just money going to work. It loves to work for me. I’m very good at getting out of the way. 🙂
The most recent portfolio update really puts things in perspective. My capital additions these days have a relatively small effect on the dividend income growth, which will only exacerbate as the dividend income grows and my capital additions slow.
Hope you had a great month, too!
Best regards.
Those are great growth rates. Not only because its mostly organic but because the portfolio is much larger than it once was. Your small contributions nowadays do not have as great as an impact percentage wise.
Nice work Jason!
ADD
ADD,
Thanks so much!
You’re absolutely right. And as I was noting in the above comment, the chasm between organic dividend growth and dividend growth from capital additions will only widen moving forward. The snowball is rolling now. It’s what I worked for, so it’s awesome to see it accelerate. 🙂
Cheers!
i so appreciate you dude.
Brian,
Thanks, man. Same to you!
Cheers.
You’re crushing it again Jason! $780 goes a long way when food is $1/meal and your rent is under $500. And even better–July is a slow month for divs!
Congrats on engineering a great lifestyle and thanks for paving the way for us!
Charles,
Thanks a lot. Much appreciated!!
It’s a hell of a life. It was definitely “engineered”. Of course, it’s not for everyone. But I’m certainly enjoying it very much. 🙂
Hope you had an awesome month as well.
Best regards!
Really nice progress. I wonder are you spending income from portfolio or reinvesting together with royalties from blogs and books?
Ps. Found this blog just couple weeks ago and have been reading ever since, such an inspirational story. Thank you for all the time you have been putting into all of this.
Johnny,
Glad you found the blog. Happy to hear you’ve been enjoying it. My lifestyle is unique (not for everyone), so it’s fun for me to share that different perspective with people.
As for your question, my passive income pays for my life. I also make a rather significant active income on top of that. I sometimes buy stocks, but it’s not really a priority for me any longer. I’m not obsessed with money or stocks.
Cheers!
Would you mind sharing what you’re doing with the excess income? If you’re not spending or investing it, are you just building up a savings account with it?
I’m in a somewhat similar situation where my investments more than cover my expenses, but I have a niche website that generates a good chunk of money. I’m in the index investor camp, so I pay myself once a quarter, top off my checking account to about $5k (enough for 3+ months of spending), and then throw the rest into VTSAX. That way I only have to deal with money management issues every four months for about an hour each time.
Travis,
No problem. I’ve actually already shared this information numerous times (in the expense reports, articles on philanthropy, etc.).
Active income is allocated toward the following: business expenses, business taxes, philanthropy, extraordinary personal spending, cash, and investing.
Cheers!
Thanks for the reply. I searched back through your articles and found your Happiness Is: Philanthropy post from last year.
I wasn’t very good about donating as I was accumulating funds, but last year I set up a DAF through Vanguard using appreciated shares. It was nice getting the tax benefit while still allowing those share to appreciate until I decide where and when I want to make a donation.
Somewhat off-topic question: Are you using Google AdSense for the ads on your site? If so, I highly recommend switching to another ad platform. If you have at least 100,000 monthly page views, try AdThrive. If you have at least 25,000 monthly sessions, then try Mediavine. You’ll most likely double or triple your ad revenue in the first couple months, and then it will continue to increase over the following months. It’s really easy to switch once you’re approved (takes less work to set up Mediavine than AdSense directly) and you’ll get more money for your philanthropic endeavors 🙂
You can contact Justin at RootOfGood if you want to see how Mediavine performs in the personal finance niche. He switched over to them last month.
Travis,
Nice move there! 🙂
Thanks for the tip. I’ll definitely look into it. I don’t go crazy with managing this blog (that’s what led me to seeking out help with DM), but I don’t mind casually checking into better opportunities, assuming the time investment is very low.
Best wishes!
Looks great to me Jason the YOY dividend increases. Also the month of July 2018 over July 2017 increases. And think all these great companies should keep increasing for years to come. I am glad to see you get to enjoy the fruits of all your labor Jason.
Congrats on all your passive income increase.
Cheers
Michael,
Thanks for the support. Much appreciated! 🙂
These are some really fine businesses. I’m confident they’ll be paying bigger dividends next year, five years from now, and ten years from now. Sleeping well at night is a priceless benefit of DGI.
Best wishes!
Good job. I’m not in the same boat but semi retired due to my military retirement. Of course when I started investing I had a semi idea what I wanted but if I had known then what I know now wow.
Over $700 in an off month is awesome it doesn’t matter where you are. Lol
hobbies,
That’s awesome. Having another source of passive income, on top of the growing dividends, is superb. The more diversification, the better. A pension is that much more protection and risk reduction. Nice! 🙂
Best regards.
Congrats on another great month Jason! Double digit YOY’s are great aren’t they? lol. July was an “off” month for me, but I am happy with collecting almost $430 in dividends. This month and next month will be even better. The temperature outside is 90 degrees, but the snowball doesn’t melt, it grows larger! Keep up the great work! 🙂
MDD,
Congrats on the big month over there. I was at that level not that long ago, honestly. But aggressive investing can bump up those figures very quickly, so you’ll be seeing what I’m looking at quickly. 🙂
I had always planned to slow down and move into other ventures once I achieved FIRE, but I didn’t even think about how nice it’d be to show what that organic dividend growth is doing post-FIRE. Spreadsheets are one thing, but seeing it all happen in real life is quite another.
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers.
Jason –
Congrats on the excellent YoY increase! It’s incredible seeing the spread of companies and only a few in single digits. I bet you are going to love that ITW dividend going forward, with the juicy 28% div increase they announced. Keep doing you J!
-Lanny
Lanny,
Thanks so much. I’m incredibly happy and grateful. My goal all along was purely FIRE. To be able to still invest and also get involved in philanthropy on top of that is just a total dream. 🙂
Yeah, that was a monster dividend increase. That goes a long way toward August’s dividend growth. That raise alone was almost like investing $1,000 in fresh capital, so it’s all gravy before I even get started with buying stocks.
Let’s keep it rolling!
Best wishes.
Congratulations on another spectacular month and that’s great seeing the YOY increase! Woohoo!
Jamie,
Appreciate that! 🙂
Hope you had a stellar month over there, too.
Best regards.
17%… wowzers.
That is amazing. Keep up the excellent work mate. Love it.
BHL,
Thanks so much. 🙂
It’s a far way off from my old YOY growth rates, but that’s an inevitability as the numbers grow in absolute terms. Plus, I’m not investing like I used to. Pretty happy to see those dividend raises put in the heavy lifting.
Cheers!
Hi Jason,
Must admit I never really look at the YOY because it means opening up the previous brokerage account but looks like last years July total was $921.91, this year $1173.63! Caught me by surprise to be honest.
Difference from last july was that I got rid of my CEF’s when I left the USA since we’re not allowed them outside it’s borders, looks like redeploying the proceeds into more dividend growth stocks made all the difference. I suspect there’s a lesson here…
Apart from that all the DGI pay increases look pretty good, long may they continue!!
Regards,
DN
DN,
That’s good stuff there. I love looking at the YOY increases (rather than the changes in the monthly income from one year to the next) because that tends to factor out any investment changes that might alter payment schedules or frequencies. It’s nice to see that snowball rolling! 🙂
Best regards!
A 13% growth is fantastic mate, keep up the excellent work. Will follow this page for more information. You’ve made it!
MPW,
Thanks so much!! 🙂
Cheers.
Hi Jason,
Well done to another month of increased dividend. This goes to show that anyone can adopt such approach to create passive income for himself or herself. It is the matter of sheer determination, consistent effort to make such process realistic and feasible. I believe that it’s the matter of belief and consistent mindset of one to make it work.
Ben
Ben,
Definitely agree. This strategy, as well as FI as a whole, doesn’t require some kind of particular intelligence or skill. Will goes a long way. 🙂
Cheers!